Portland Mayor Charlie Hales pushed a plan to add $20 million in affordable housing in North and Northeast Portland on Monday as part of an effort to revive a Trader Joe's development.
(Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian)

(UPDATED: The Mayor's office issued a correction on Tuesday. The current budget calls for $16.6 million, not $36 million, in affordable housing in addition to the $20 million)

Mayor
Charlie Hales summoned dozens of leaders from North and Northeast Portland to
City Hall on Monday to reiterate his support for the now-dormant plan to
build a Trader Joe's on a long-vacant city-owned property.

Hales and Commissioner Dan Saltzman also announced plans to
spend an additional $20 million in the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area
on affordable housing projects during the next five years, according to a press
release.

"This historically African-American sector of our city
needs jobs," Hales said in a statement. "It needs economic
opportunity. And it needs affordable housing. And working together, the community
leaders and I are committed to this future."

Willamette Week first reported the meeting.

Hales sent out the casting call to community members Friday. The group of 50 met in City Hall's Rose Room for nearly two hours
Monday.

In November, the Portland Development Commission's board
signed off on a land deal with California-based Majestic Realty Co., to sell a
nearly two-acre parcel on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at Northeast
Alberta Street for roughly $500,000. The land was recently valued at $2.9
million, according to a property appraisal.

Trader Joe's surprise announcement set off a flurry of activity
in recently weeks, sparking multiple petitions from community groups supporting
the grocery store, and two public meetings hosted by the Portland African
American Leadership Forum.

The affordable housing announcement is a victory for PAALF,
the most vocal critic of the subsidized development last year. PAALF criticized city leaders for their lack of transparency in the Trader Joe's talks and cited decades of policies
that lead to displacement of communities of color. PAALF leaders also said the
project needed to include affordable
housing.

PAALF activists were also at the table Monday, and according to Hales' office, the group will have a voice in helping to allocate the $20 million in tax increment financing.

In the statement, PAALF called Monday's meetings a "start to
a path of victory for all who have been displaced and marginalized for twenty
years." The $20 million will be dedicated solely in the Interstate Corridor Urban
Renewal Area, which covers a 3,990-acre patchwork of inner North and Northeast
Portland, stretching south as far as Broadway and North to Columbia Boulevard.
Some $16.6 million is already set aside for affordable housing in that area,
according to Hales' release.

PAALF leaders met at a press conference on the day Trader Joe's announced it wouldn't build a store on the vacant lot.Andrew Theen/The Oregonian

Monday's meeting isn't the first indication from Hales that
he supported efforts to bring back Trader Joe's.

Josh Alpert, Hales' policy director, said the mayor's office
has been in constant contact with Trader Joe's and Majestic since the news in
February. Hales was "waiting to allow community conversations to continue,'
Alpert said.

Alpert pointed to a community survey by PAALF, which marked affordable
housing and a grocery as community priorities for the vacant land, as
"affirming."

In the weeks since Trader Joe's backed out, PAALF's
two meetings drew big crowds and passionate feelings on all sides.

Those discussions continued into Monday. Alpert described
the meeting as "passionate and civil and incredibly productive."

Everyone got a chance to weigh in, he said.

"This is a
necessary step forward," Michael Alexander, executive director of the Urban
League of Portland, said in a statement. "This community has not been well
served, historically. We need a new history. And we start writing that history
today."

Adam Milne, owner of Old Town Brewing Co., said the meeting
was "a sigh of relief and a moment of healing." Milne said his business at Vanport
Square, just north of the vacant lot, needs the foot traffic of a signature neighbor
nearby.

"I do think there was a lot of consensus in the room," he said.

Hales isn't the only person lobbying Majestic and Trader
Joe's: Colas traveled to Los Angeles last Wednesday to meet with both
the developer and the popular grocery and present Trader Joe's with his online petition, which
includes nearly 700 supporters.

"They were actually pleasantly surprised
to see the enormous amount of support," Colas said.

He is "cautiously optimistic" Trader Joe's and Majestic may
return to the table.

Colas said that if Trader
Joe's comes back, it would help spur economic development in the historically
black business district. That means construction jobs, other businesses and
therefore more employment opportunities.

PDC is also offering a "community benefits agreement" on the
property, with goals for minority contractors and hiring, as well as "a
commitment that 50 percent of the tenants in a second building on the site
would be filled by local businesses"

The urban renewal agency will also work with minority owned
businesses nearby to "to create and support a robust business and
commercial district," the release said.

Alpert said the process would be transparent: "We're all
very serious about making sure as we move forward, we're doing it in
the most inclusive way."